“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion,” still known as Parkinson’s Law.” — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
The great failure in education, much of the time, is the lack of excitement and stimulus — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Because time moves more slowly in Kid World ... it goes on for decades ... It is adult life that is over… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“For the moment we might very well can them DUNNOS (for Dark Unknown Nonreflective Nondetectable Objects Somewhere).” — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Nobody gets excited about the future at all, ever. The future is something we find depressing and worrisome. — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“But the thing is, most of the time bad things don't happen. Rocks don't fall. Earthquakes don't occur. New vents don't suddenly… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“In Anglo-Saxon times, according to Crippen, it was customary for someone offering a drink to say, “Wassail!” and for the recipient to… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
When I awoke it was daylight. The inside of my tent was coated in a curious flaky rime, which I realized after… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Coming back to your native land after an absence of many years is a surprisingly unsettling business, a little like waking from… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“It is a challenge to believe that there was ever a time that airline food was exciting, when stewardesses were happy to… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
I've been wanting to do a book about baseball for the longest time, and nobody will let me do it. It's the… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“I didn’t ask for twenty quarter-pound cheeseburgers, I asked for four quarter-pound cheeseburgers five times.” “Same thing,” he said. “It’s not the… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
I wanted to quit and to do this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“Brain cells last as long as you do. You are issued with a hundred billion or so at birth and that is… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“The bad news is that atoms are fickle and their time of devotion is fleeting—fleeting indeed. Even a long human life adds… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“In essence what relativity says is that space and time are not absolute but relative both to the observer and the thing… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
There'd never been a more advantageous time to be a criminal in America than during the 13 years of Prohibition. At a… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“Everyone has a supremely low moment somewhere along the AT, usually when the urge to quit the trail becomes almost overpowering. The… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“The 1920s was a great time for reading altogether—very possibly the peak decade for reading in American life. Soon it would be… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“In America, alas, beauty has become something you drive to, and nature an either/or proposition--either you ruthlessly subjugate it, as at Tocks… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“...it occurred to me, not for the first time, what a remarkably small world Britain is. That is its glory, you see--that… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain - which is to say,… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
The number of people on whose cooperative efforts your eventual existence depends has risen to approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, which is several thousand times… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
For a long time, I'd been vaguely fascinated by the idea that Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and Babe Ruth hit 60… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
The world is very lucky to have America. It's got to be the first time in the whole history of the planet… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
I don't know whether I'm misanthropic. It seems to me I'm constantly disappointed. I'm very easily disappointed. Disappointed in the things that… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“American airmen, when they got to the front, mostly flew in borrowed, patched-up planes provided by the Allies, leaving them in the… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
By the time I had finished my coffee and returned to the streets, the rain had temporarily abated, but the streets were… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“With the canal, the cost of shipping a ton of flour from Buffalo to New York City fell from $120 a ton… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“In the time of Dickens, almost all ironwork was green, light blue, or dull gray.” — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Four times I was honked at for having the temerity to proceed through town without the benefit of metal. — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
I want things to be better all the time. And I tend to get angry about that. Books are an opportunity to… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
That's the trouble with losing your mind; by the time it's gone, it's too late to get it back. — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Most big companies don't like you very much, except hotels, airlines and Microsoft, which don't like you at all. — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“But Welsh spellings are as nothing compared with Irish Gaelic, a language in which spelling and pronunciation give the impression of having been devised… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“Pantaloons were often worn tight as paint and were not a great deal less revealing, particularly as they were worn without underwear. . .… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
If you go out on the Appalachian Trail, you have to bring so much more equipment - a tent, sleeping bag - but if… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“The dining table was a plain board called by that name. It was hung on the wall when not in use, and was perched… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“From almost nothing, France in four years built up an aircraft industry that employed nearly 200,000 people and produced some 70,000 planes. Britain built… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“A diarist named George Templeton Strong recorded in the winter of 1866 that even with two furnaces alight and all the fireplaces blazing, he… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
As a rule of thumb, I would submit that if you need to call your floss provider, for any reason, you are probably not… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Nobody gets excited about the future at all, ever. The future is something we find depressing and worrisome. — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“What made this particularly interesting is that John Howard is by far the dullest man in Australia. Imagine a very committed funeral home director… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
